“It ended up being an average snowfall year for us,” Director of Public Relations Brent Curtain said.
Twelve metres of snow fell between November and April, “including six metres in December that set us up for winter. It’s one of the strongest starts I’ve ever seen.”
The number of sunshine days doubled to 70 this year – twice as many as the Resort has seen in the past two winters, Curtain said.
“The majority of our skiers are fair weather skiers. There’s our powder skiers who like the big storm cycles, but as far as broad-based appeal, the weather this year? You couldn’t beat it.”
Visitor numbers were up overall. “People were doing different things when they came up,” Director of Business Operations and Marketing Don Sharpe said. “We didn’t necessarily see all the alpine (skiing) visitors; people were snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.”
The Resort saw good growth in its cross-country products, especially snowshoeing, he added. They added some new activities like Winter Wonderland and Family Day.
The lack of new snow in March saw numbers soften, but stellar spring skiing in May brought out the “bluebird” skiers. “We had some spring skiing in May with temperatures reaching 20 degrees Celsius,” Sharpe said.
Family Day, the new statutory holiday for British Columbia, “was a big success,” Sharpe said, with 6,000 people coming out each day. The Resort had the second busiest day on the Sunday before the holiday Monday, making it one of the top five days of the season. “Family Day brought in Christmas numbers,” Curtain said. “We’d never normally see those numbers in February. It was huge for us and step forward.”
The Snow School enjoyed a very successful winter as well with one of its new programs, Rookie Year, Director of Snow School and Rental Operations Mike Manara said. “It’s probably one of the most successful programs we’ve ever introduced,” Manara said.